


Foible

by 0bviousLeigh



Series: Yuma is a Girl [12]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Blood, Other, slight amount from a scraped knee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-27 07:10:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12076071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0bviousLeigh/pseuds/0bviousLeigh
Summary: When she was little, Yuma would fall all the time. She scraped her knees, elbows, palms, chin…and each time she fell, dad was there to pick her up, brush her off, and kiss it better.





	Foible

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my Zexal rewrite that I started for Zexal month on tumblr--an AU in which, first and foremost, Yuma is a girl. Always a girl, born with a V, the whole nine yards. Why? Because the idea wouldn't leave me alone. So [I drew it](http://rainbow-galaxy-supernova.tumblr.com/post/164290621451/zexal-month-day-13-yuma-day-something-ive-been), and I started writing it, and I ran with it.
> 
> This is not a rewrite of a specific episode, but it is a look into Yuma's mind.

“KATTOBINGU!!” Yuma screams as she leaps and hits the handrail. Her slide starts out great, but as she nears the bottom of the rail she can tell that she’s going to miss the landing. Sure enough, her board goes flying out from under her feet, and she tries to brace herself as best she can. She lands hard on one knee and throws her hands out in time to keep her nose from colliding with the sidewalk. Her gloves save her palms, but her bare knee suffers from the impact.

“That is quite a lot of blood,” Astral says as Yuma brushes gravel out of the scrape. Her kneecap is stained red and it stings as she brushes her fingers over it.

“It’s because the skin is thin on the knees,” Yuma says offhandedly. She spits on the open wound, then gets up to retrieve her board.

“Yuma, I have a question,” Astral says. “Why do you protect your head, hands, and elbows, but not the rest of your body? It seems to me that your wounds could be avoided by wearing pants.”

“I wear pants to school and in the winter,” Yuma says, “It’s hot right now, and pants are constricting. And I’m not taking fashion advice from you, you’re stark naked all the time!” Yuma hops on her skateboard and takes off down the sidewalk, muttering about naked ghosts.

At home, Akari gets predictably ticked by Yuma’s bloody knee. “Damn it Yuma, can’t you try to be safe?” She snaps, “Look at you, you’re dripping blood!”

And indeed, the blood has dripped on to Yuma’s sock and shoe. This is why she doesn’t wear her good shoes when she skates—that, to her, is careful enough.

“It’s a scratch!” Yuma says, exasperated. “I could just as easily scrape my knee by slipping on a banana peel, you know. It’s not like I got impaled.”

Akari glares at her briefly before rolling her eyes. “Go to the bathroom,” she says.

Yuma sighs. She’s used to this—wash, disinfect, and protect. Lillybot follows Yuma out of the kitchen, holding gauze, peroxide, and Neosporin. Yuma takes those things from the robot at the bathroom door and then shoos her away. She scrubs her legs in the tub, rubbing soap right over the wound.

“I thought I told you not to follow me in here,” Yuma says as she feels someone staring at her.

“Akari’s concern made me concerned,” Astral says. He hovers close, staring at Yuma’s knee. “Doesn’t it hurt? Most humans whom I’ve seen with such injuries cry.”

“I’m no wimp,” Yuma says. “I wouldn’t cry over a skinned knee.”

It’s unhealthy, what Yuma does, and she knows it. She thinks Akari knows it too, and that’s why she’s such a pain about it, but it’s been so long that Yuma’s not quite sure how to stop.

When she was little, Yuma would fall all the time. She scraped her knees, elbows, palms, chin…and each time she fell, dad was there to pick her up, brush her off, and kiss it better. In a way, the pain grounds her, it reminds her that she’s present in this world. But it also makes her think of times when she had someone to help her through it.

That’s why, a week after her parents vanished, in a fit of rage and devastation, Yuma stood in the bathroom at 1 AM, held a sewing needle over a candle flame until it was sterile, and then drove the needle into her earlobe. It hurt like hell, and she kept expecting her parents to barge into the bathroom, yelling at her to knock it off. She expected the same thing when she got her cartilage pierced, when she got in fist fights with girls and boys who were older and bigger than her, and when she dueled even though Akari told her not to. Even now when she tumbles off her skateboard, sometimes she thinks she’ll look up and see her dad with a bandage in hand, ready to patch her up.

Yuma pats her leg dry. The blood is washed away from the rest of her leg, now it sluggishly creeps back up over the scrape. She squeezes antibacterial ointment on the wound and covers it with a bandage.

She also wonders if she does this because she’s mad. She knows it’s not mom and dad’s fault that they went missing, accidents happen, but some part of her still blames them. Sometimes she thinks that when (if) her parents do come home, she wants to yell at them. She wants to show them her scars and scream that they did it to her. If they were just here, Yuma doesn’t know if she would be so reckless.

“Yuma?” Astral calls.

She jumps—she’s standing still in the bathroom doorway. “I’m hungry,” she mutters as she ignores Astral’s look of confusion. She runs down the hall yelling, “Grandma! Can we have fish for dinner?”


End file.
